The church will not investigate his case further. For lack of “sufficient elements,” Pope Francis refused to launch a new canonical inquiry into Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, accused of sexual assault in his country, the Vatican spokesman said on Thursday, August 18.
A person beginning with the letter “F.” reports that she was the victim of inappropriate touching by Marc Ouellet, then Archbishop of Quebec, while she was an intern between 2008 and 2010. She claims that in 2008 the cardinal repeatedly massaged her shoulders “vigorously,” stroking her back while she “hugged her tightly,” and that the cardinal moved closer to her when she tried to avoid her, giving her “the impression made to be hunted”.
In 2010, she declared that she was seeing Marc Ouellet again. In a court document, she says the cardinal decided to “kiss her one more time” and say “it’s okay to spoil yourself a little.” The man “slid his hand” down her back “to her buttocks,” according to F.
The victim wrote to Pope Francis about it in 2020, on the recommendation of the Diocese of Quebec’s Advisory Committee on Sexual Abuse. In 2021, the sovereign pope responds by appointing “Father Jacques Servais to investigate Cardinal Marc Ouellet”, now prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, one of the most important functions of the Vatican government.
After a preliminary inquiry, Father Sevrais considered that the applicant “was not [pas] made an accusation that would provide material for such an investigation”, “neither in his report, which he wrote and sent to the Holy Father, nor in the testimony via Zoom (…), which was subsequently given in the presence of a member of the Diocesan Committee ad hoc”. The spokesman for the Holy See indicates that Father Servais was again contacted by the Pope, to whom he assured that there was no need to continue the proceedings.
F.’s case is among the testimonies of a hundred people who say they were “sexually abused” by more than 80 members and lay employees of the Diocese of Quebec between June 1940 and the present. A class action lawsuit was approved by the Superior Court of Quebec in May.